NYT, UNITED NATIONS Terrorism, drug-related crime and factional fighting in Afghanistan threaten to reverse advances in the reconstruction of the country and jeopardize the efforts to establish a democratically elected government, Germany's ambassador to the United Nations told the Security Council on Tuesday.
His comments came after a bomb exploded outside a UN compound in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, wounding two people, UN officials reported.
The German ambassador, Gunter Pleuger, who led a Security Council mission to Afghanistan last week, said the council had seen “how the lack of security – some call it 'the rule of the gun' – affected the entire Afghan peace process.” Remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda are contributing to the insecurity and pose a “significant threat” to the national security forces, he said.
“Major challenges lie ahead,” he added, “and much remains to be done if the peace process is to become irreversible and security in Afghanistan realized.”
The delegation's visit, which involved ambassadors or high-level envoys from the 15 member nations of the Security Council, was intended to underscore the UN commitment to the Afghan peace process and to urge provincial warlords and other local authorities to cooperate with the central government of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president.
The Security Council found in its five-day survey of the country that while Afghan officials have largely achieved the benchmarks of the Bonn agreement, which established the interim government and a timeline leading to national elections in 2004, “the conditions necessary for a credible political process are not yet in place,” Pleuger said.
Intransigent local commanders have ignored demands to appoint provincial officials and pay taxes, and a lack of money and security has imperiled the electoral registration process, the Security Council found.
Pleuger, on behalf of the council, insisted that until the Afghans were able to assume responsibility for themselves, the international community had to remain engaged in the country's reconstruction. While the international community had pledged about $1.7 billion in reconstruction aid, only $600 million had been collected, he said.
The Kandahar bombing came at about 3:50 p.m. local time, when a vehicle packed with explosives blew up near the UN compound, said Fred Eckhard, a UN spokesman.
A security guard working for the mission and an Afghan civilian were injured, he said. The explosion broke windows in the mission, and another UN building nearby also sustained damage, the spokesman said. Casualties were limited because the blast came after UN workers had left the building at the end of the work day.
UN officials said investigators had no indication of who was responsible for the attack.
UN operations in Afghanistan have come under attack once before, when a grenade was tossed into a Food and Agriculture Organization compound in Kandahar, Eckhard said.
Following Tuesday's blast, all UN workers were sent home or ordered to stay indoors.
